Best lube for a lock?

[Deja vu]

At my home there is an oldish weather warn lock. The fence that it has locked shut has not been open in a long time. My son wants to add this old lock to his collection. We don't have the key. I told him that he could have the lock if he could pick it.

Well it turns out that the pins are really sticky. My son is really in to lock picking and would like to salvage the lock. What is a good lube? I'm leaning toward graphite but open to any thing.

The lock is a American Lock A790. I understand it's re-key able so may be we can get it working!

[Shackle Jackal]

Different lubes for different situations, I have luck with WD-40 for locks that have been left out and are really dirty. I give them a good blast with carb cleaner (brake cleaner/ parts cleaner) insert a keyblank several times to work the cleaner through the lock. LET DRY completely, then I use a small squirt of the WD-40, run the key blank through again. Also, and this might be all in my head, but I like to wait til the locks have gotten hot from the sun, in my mind it frees up some of the "crud". I am all about the placebo affect if it works, or I think it works. Once I get the lock picked I would do my best to get all of that WD-40 out of the lock as it can becomes gummy and attract dirt over time. I like white lithium for a clean lock in good condition.

*After thought --- Be aware that carb cleaner destroys certain plastics, embarrassingly I forget this all the time. I recently sprayed a bunch of carb cleaner into one of the newer master lock disc style locks with the plastic covering. It did not ruin the lock but i left my fingerprints all over the covering of the lock before I realized that I had " dum dun it again"

[cledry]

I would say that white lithium is good for things like the locking balls but too heavy for the cylinder itself. We use a product called SuperSlick Stuff, it will flush out the dirt and leaves nothing to attract dirt.

[GWiens2001]

Not another one of these "Which lock lube is best" threads!

Here are related posts. There are only 83 of them.

I don't mean to be rude, but locking this thread as there are quite a few other posts on the subject. The place gets cluttered with repeated information.

Gordon